Rizzoli and Isles Fans

[FrogAlum]

Tess Gerritsen is publishing a short story on the TNT website, one chapter per week...

Freaks - Chapter 1

She is also blogging about each episode:

Tess's Corner

They are both interesting reading...

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

I haven't read any of the books, but I watched the first episode of the TV show and was terribly disappointed by the story line. It was based on three of my least favorite tropes:

• Criminal targets cop personally. A story with this trope means that the writer couldn't come up with any idea for an actual investigation. It's the lamest kind of cop story there is. They were already out of fresh ideas in the first episode???
• Woman in jep. An entire genre of its own. I feel that it's "violence porn" with no redeeming social value.
• Inhuman villain. This means that the writer couldn't come up with any idea for a realistic villain. Again I'm stunned that the creativity well came up dry on the first episode.

I shut off the story after 20 minutes, and I don't plan to watch any more episodes. I've got much more interesting shows to watch.

Is this the nature of the books? Was anyone else so disappointed in the TV show?

[gqb]

Oh, man, I wasn't ready for a TV series!  I haven't read all the books yet!  I requested them through all my libraries.  I'm going on a trip next week so I may be buying the rest of them.

Thanks, Frog!

[h2oskierc]

I enjoy Michael Connelly books, but am interested in expanding my reading list.  Are these books worth checking out, or are they geared toward females?

If Angie Harmon is in the book I am definitely there... 

@Doug_Pardee, I can see what you are saying, but I wasn't bothered by those issues.  What does that say about me that I wasn't?  Now I'm worried.

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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h2oskierc wrote:

I wasn't bothered by those issues.  What does that say about me that I wasn't?

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That you're not a writer? Well, at least for #1 and #3.

[FrogAlum]

@Doug

I was disappointed in a way, but not how you mean...

The first episode was the first TWO books crammed together...  There is a ton of story NOT in the episode...  The villan for instance, is a truly horrible guy BUT he's not fleshed out in the show as he was in the books.  Rizzoli and Isles are also different in the books, they are full of flaws, some they recognize and others they don't, I miss that in the show.

I really don't think I can slam someone for writing about violence against women, especially another woman, when it's all around us.  Let's face it, when do serial killers go after men?  Women are so much more often the target especially when the victim is a stranger to the perpetrator.

The books were excellent, the show not so much (to me) for that single reason.  Those two books could have easily been a four show arc and you would probably be feeling different as that show was NOT how the books were.  Shoot, the primary target (and a main focus) from the first book wasn't even mentioned in the show.

[growlingraven]

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h2oskierc wrote:

I enjoy Michael Connelly books, but am interested in expanding my reading list.  Are these books worth checking out, or are they geared toward females?

If Angie Harmon is in the book I am definitely there... 

@Doug_Pardee, I can see what you are saying, but I wasn't bothered by those issues.  What does that say about me that I wasn't?  Now I'm worried.

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I've read the first three in the series and don't find them to be geared for women. Michael Connelly is one of my favorites also, as well as John Sandford, Robert Crais, John Connolly, and Dennis Lehane.Recently I came across Brina Freeman and his work. I've enjoyed a number of his books also.

Good luck. I'm always out on the lookout for authors such as those above, in case you come across a new 'find'.

[Opa-MN]

I must have been watching Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander and forgot to look for a plot.

growlingraven:  I agree on the authors.  Check out William Kent Krueger

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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FrogAlum wrote:

I really don't think I can slam someone for writing about violence against women, especially another woman, when it's all around us.  Let's face it, when do serial killers go after men?  Women are so much more often the target especially when the victim is a stranger to the perpetrator.

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Just my personal feelings: that doesn't make it a legitimate form of entertainment.

In her book Beauty, Sheri S. Tepper put it this way:

They would become habituated to horror. They would read it, see films of it. They would soak it up. …

The more you talk about it, the oftener you see it, the more it loses its power to shock, its power to disgust. …

So that when the real death stalks
When the real horror begins
It will all be familiar and we will be able to enjoy it.

The stories of missing, raped, abused, and murdered women on the TV news look like a continuation of the preceding TV drama. More entertainment, with no gruesome details spared. How did he fit her body into a suitcase without chopping off more parts than just her fingers?

Me, I am not "able to enjoy it." And I don't want to be able to.

[orb9220]

Yep have to agree with  Doug_Pardee

It seems more a modern version of Cagney & Lacey. Or a blend of Bones & Crossing Jordan.

With Bones I found way more entertaining tho buy the end of 2nd season. I'm starting to be annoyed with the cutsy Michaela Conlin being a nymphomaniac that considers hottie men more important on the job. Than actual crime fighting & science. And Crossing Jordan was way to much about and name of show should have changed to "All About Jordan". When I am more instested in the other characters of the show. Which seemed to have more depth and wanted to see them more.

I'll have to pass on Rizzoli & Isles tho I may watch from time to time for the humor.

.

[ABthree]

@Doug_Pardee

I can't argue with anything you said.  Troy Patterson in Slate saw it much the same way...

http://www.slate.com/id/2260625/

... and he called Angie Harmon "the dialogue-reading supermodel", contrasting her with Sasha Alexander, the "actress".  Catty, but it still makes me chuckle.

Yet, I enjoyed it, right down to Angie Harmon's supermodeling of the dialogue.  Guess I'll watch it again, classify it as a guilty pleasure, and not admit this to anyone in the world, ever again in my life.

[FrogAlum]

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ABthree wrote:

@Doug_Pardee

I can't argue with anything you said.  Troy Patterson in Slate saw it much the same way...

http://www.slate.com/id/2260625/

... and he called Angie Harmon "the dialogue-reading supermodel", contrasting her with Sasha Alexander, the "actress".  Catty, but it still makes me chuckle.

Yet, I enjoyed it, right down to Angie Harmon's supermodeling of the dialogue.  Guess I'll watch it again, classify it as a guilty pleasure, and not admit this to anyone in the world, ever again in my life.

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Oh, I can agree with a lot of this!  I especailly agree with a lot of the reader comments, especially those that have read the books...

These characters and the story (can't really say the screenplay had a plot) are about as similar to the books as cotton candy is to a really great steak...

For the record, not all of her books have the same serial killer theme, or even "women as the enemy" theme, I wouldn't read them if they were.  I don't rule anything out when it comes to reading a murder mystery, hey that's life, but if that's all they write about, then it becomes sensationalism for me...

As for any murder being "entertainment," I don't think any of them are, but that's not the purpose of the book to begin with.  It's the puzzles and the hunt that make it entertaining.

I really wish the characters and the writing had the same layers and depth as the books, buy they don't and that's just sad. 

I can tell you, as someone that gets a lot of blood work done, The Surgeon (the first book and one of those used in the pilot episode) had me thinking twice!  The sad part?  If you haven't read the book, you don't know what I'm talking about and that's just wrong!

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

Just to be clear, it's not "murder mysteries" I have a problem with. I read a lot of them, especially cozies where you're pretty much guaranteed not one but two murders, and I watch a number of mystery shows on TV.

On this year's season finale of Castle, Stephen J. Cannell said, "Look, Rick, as much trouble as we go through to write these novels, there are only three reasons to commit a murder: love, money, and to cover up a crime." A motive that didn't make Cannell's list: "Because it's fun to terrorize, brutalize, and kill women." That's what I find no entertainment value in.

[gqb]

Ramona the Pest  

Hey everyone!  I'm not much of a TV watcher anyway, but I don't think I'll bother watching the series.  Characterization is important in a book an I'd rather not watch something that take too much away from it. 

As an avid Beverly Cleary fan as a child and even as an adult., I'm even hesistant about the upcoming movie Ramona and Beezus.  The old Louis Darling illustrations were perfect and my visualization of the characters is set from a long time ago.

This cover does NOT depict Ramona.

[NikiGunn]

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gqb wrote:

This cover does NOT depict Ramona.

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I know! They're disturbing. My sister and I were horrified a few years ago when we saw them.

Of course, this cover is much more disturbing:

Ramona Quimby, Age 8 

I'm not impressed with Rizzoli & Isles. I only watched it because I was visiting my mother and her boyfriend was playing it off their DVR.

[FrogAlum]

Talk about not looking like the character, Jane Rizzoli is often characterized as plain, petite, dumpy...  Which of those is Angie Harmon????? 

Maura Isles has jet black hair, straight with bangs and always wears black in the books...  That's how she got the nickname "Queen of the Dead."  Not quite what they have done with Sasha...

I wish they would stop that!  Of course, they would lose those male viewers that are drooling on this thread. 

[ABthree]

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FrogAlum wrote:

Talk about not looking like the character, Jane Rizzoli is often characterized as plain, petite, dumpy...  Which of those is Angie Harmon????? 

Maura Isles has jet black hair, straight with bangs and always wears black in the books...  That's how she got the nickname "Queen of the Dead."  Not quite what they have done with Sasha...

I wish they would stop that!  Of course, they would lose those male viewers that are drooling on this thread. 

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Picky, picky, picky!

I'll take "dialogue-reading supermodel" over "plain, petite and dumpy" any day -- and happily suspend disbelief as long as she's on-screen.

And I'll never ruin my enjoyment by reading the books and actually knowing what you're talking about.  LOL

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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ABthree wrote:

I'll take "dialogue-reading supermodel" over "plain, petite and dumpy" any day -- and happily suspend disbelief as long as she's on-screen.

And I'll never ruin my enjoyment by reading the books and actually knowing what you're talking about.  LOL

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Avoid Kathy Reich's Bones series novels, too, then. The Temperance Brennan in the books is an overweight middle-aged woman who bears zero resemblance to Emily Deschanel. Heck, The book Temperance would probably pronounce "Deschanel" with a Quebecois accent.

[FrogAlum]

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ABthree wrote:

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FrogAlum wrote:

Talk about not looking like the character, Jane Rizzoli is often characterized as plain, petite, dumpy...  Which of those is Angie Harmon????? 

Maura Isles has jet black hair, straight with bangs and always wears black in the books...  That's how she got the nickname "Queen of the Dead."  Not quite what they have done with Sasha...

I wish they would stop that!  Of course, they would lose those male viewers that are drooling on this thread. 

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Picky, picky, picky!

I'll take "dialogue-reading supermodel" over "plain, petite and dumpy" any day -- and happily suspend disbelief as long as she's on-screen.

And I'll never ruin my enjoyment by reading the books and actually knowing what you're talking about.  LOL

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You might want to wipe your chin, it's dripping. 

[FrogAlum]

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Doug_Pardee wrote:

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ABthree wrote:

I'll take "dialogue-reading supermodel" over "plain, petite and dumpy" any day -- and happily suspend disbelief as long as she's on-screen.

And I'll never ruin my enjoyment by reading the books and actually knowing what you're talking about.  LOL

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Avoid Kathy Reich's Bones series novels, too, then. The Temperance Brennan in the books is an overweight middle-aged woman who bears zero resemblance to Emily Deschanel. Heck, The book Temperance would probably pronounce "Deschanel" with a Quebecois accent.

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LOL  I want to start reading that series, I've been meaning to and never got around to it.

You know, the way the part is played (in general, her temperment, etc...) I can see the frumpy middle ager in her...